Odds and Ends
by hereswith
Summary: 100 word PotC drabbles about love, sea longing, blood and gold and other important matters...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from these drabbles.  
**Summary**: A collection of PotC drabbles, about love, sea-longing, blood and gold and  
other important matters....  
**Author's note**: All the drabbles have been written for The Black Pearl Sails FanFiction   
group's drabble challenges (the rules are: write exactly 100 words about a certain theme).   
And the Valentine's Day Drabble, is J/E.

  
  
**A Blacksmith's Hands**  


His hands were not a blacksmith's hands, made rough by honest work. Fire had not blistered   
them, the hammer had not marked them and they could not shape metal into a thing of beauty   
and of grace.

She had dreamed of fingers smudged with soot, of skin hardened by steel. A blacksmith's hands,   
so strong and sure, that would hold fast and always keep her safe.

His hands were not a blacksmith's hands. Yet she lay awake, at night, renembering the weight   
and feel of them upon her. And if she held her breath, she could almost hear the sea.

  
  
**Blood and Gold  
**

Hell had not spat him out, but there was blood on his hands that he could not wash away. Not   
with salt water, not with fresh water. Not with gold. Blood was funny like that.

He never saw it, but he felt it, sometimes, when the nights were long and the rum and the Pearl   
could not keep him afloat.

A weakness, Barbossa had said. Not fit to be Captain. Not fit to be a pirate, at all. The gold is   
the gold and dead men are easy to plunder.

Easy to plunder, perhaps, but not so easy to forget.

  
  
**First Time  
**

He kept his back straight, by sheer strength of will, but his face burned, hot as if with fever and   
his smile faded, the moment he stepped out of sight.

He returned home at nightfall. Took off his hat and his wig and sat down. The light fell, just so,   
and a shimmer of blue caught his eye. His mother's necklace. Elizabeth would never wear it, now.

"Put that away!"

"Yes, Commodore."

The servant closed the lid, then lifted the box and rushed from the room. Sensible man.

He had been jilted before. This was the first time it hurt.

**  
  
Anticipation  
**

For a moment, she thought he would kiss her.

She was young, but not so young that she had never seen that look in a man's eyes before.   
None would dare touch the Governor's daughter, but what they could not touch, they watched.  
Even Will.

Jack the pirate, followed no such rules of conduct. His hand was on her shoulder, his gaze upon   
her mouth and his voice, when he spoke, was much like the rum. It burned.

For a moment, she thought he would kiss her.

And for just one moment, she wanted to know how it would feel.

  
  
**Discovery  
**

Safely tucked in and curled up in bed, hot coals warming her feet. No pirate in sight. No sparrows   
at hand.

She had heard of him, of course. Heard and read and dreamed, of Captain Jack. Not a single life   
lost, at Nassau Port and yet, they said the holds of his ship were bursting with plunder. She had   
tried to run away, fool that she had been, in the hope of joining his crew.

He was not the man the stories had described. Despicable, in truth, she would not take that back.   
No dreams, after this, would be innocent.

  
  
**Beginning  
**

A week on the ship and she got her sea legs. Like she was born to it, one of the sailors said, but   
Mr. Gibbs shook his head, muttering about bad luck or no luck at all. She had learned not to mind   
him, though he had frightened her at first.

Whenever her father's attention wavered, she stood at the bow, watching the men climb up and   
down the rigging, watching the sea shift and change as the weather changed. Azure blue and grey   
as burnished steel.

A new life, beyond the edge of that horizon. She could hardly wait.

  
  
**Sea-Longing  
**

He had dreamed of the sea, for the whole of his life. She had come to him, like a woman, draped   
in emerald green, clothed in soft, sapphire blue and, sometimes, bearing the grey of death.

In calm and storm, he had ridden the waves, the king of the world, in that very moment and never  
again. Not ever again.

Age had not dimmed the longing; the curse had not altered it. And when his chest shattered, he   
thought he could see her, there, in the corner of his eye. The sea, the darling sea, who opened wide   
her arms.

  
  
**Red Horizon  
**

Red was the evening that followed, that day. A horizon of blood, and the colour itself would have   
brought them delight, at any other time. But Jack was the Governor of a far, distant isle and Bootstrap   
was fish-bait at the bottom of the sea and, for the first time, fear took hold of their hearts.

"The curse!" Ragetti cried and covered his eyes.

And the gold glimmered and shone, in their hands, the skull that adorned every coin the only thing   
perfectly visible, as the sun slowly set.

The clouds parted and fled. The moon would be full, tonight.

  
  
**Jack the Monkey  
**

The monkey kept her company, that endless, moonlit night. It stared at her, with small, dark eyes   
that held so little knowledge and yet, more than she could ever have. She caught glimpses of Hell,   
if she looked closely enough, if she dared to meet its gaze. 

Sometimes, it would come within arm's length of her and start jumping up and down, arms flailing.   
The mouth opened, the face contorted, and it screamed, as if it was angry. She huddled closer to   
the wall, cold to the marrow of her bones. And the monkey stilled, lips settling into a smile.

  
  
**Colour - Brown  
**

Mary Elizabeth Swann had died, long ago, in faraway England, and never lived to see her daughter   
make her home on this sun-scorched island, in the midst of the ocean.

Elizabeth, now, was much like her mother had been. She had her mother's hair and her mother's   
eyes, both the brown of the soil that has been newly tilled and plowed in the fields. She was an   
autumn girl, a child of the land and the earth. 

But she was Elizabeth, not Mary, and she was different, in one way, at least. For her heart was all   
of the sea.

  
  
**Valentine's Day Drabble  
**

He burned fire bright. Eyes open or closed; she saw nothing else. All the world fell away like so   
much rubble and shards. Ashes and dust. Her skin could not hold her, her heart did not fit in this   
cage, wrought of flesh and of bone.

This was the whole of him, the sum of the parts. Old wounds and new ones, scars and brand and   
braided hair. The golden smile and the silver tongue, that no metal could match. A sparrow, but   
not a nondescript bird. A pirate, and a good man.

And here, was the greatest of treasures.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to Disney. No infringement   
is intended and I'm certainly not making any money from these drabbles.  
**Summary**: Another collection of PotC drabbles.  
**Author's note**: All the drabbles have been written for The Black Pearl Sails FanFiction   
group's drabble challenges (the rules are: write exactly 100 words about a certain theme). 

  
  
**Home**  


Home was the place to which he could never go back. Not the mangroves and the   
palm trees, but the oaks and the beeches and the bluebells nodding in the wind. The   
snowflakes melting on his cheeks. His mother's voice, when she sang him to sleep.

"My Jack," she always whispered. "My sweet little bird."

But he had spread his wings. Had flown far and wide, away from English soil. His   
mother had died, by the time he was eight.

He had no home, now, on land or sea, but the _Pearl_. And most days, most nights,   
he was content.

  
  
**Conversation Without Words  
**

He looked up. Barbossa was standing in the doorway, plumed hat on his head, belt   
buckle shining. Jack frowned; thinking there was something he had missed. Some small,  
inconsequential fact, that kept the world from falling apart. 

Barbossa smiled, the corners of his lips lifted, ever so slowly and Jack's eyes narrowed,   
in response. It was a familiar smile. Death always followed. Jack reached for his pistol,   
but Barbossa stepped forward, gaze clear and steady, no hint of hesitation in his face.

Cold fingers danced down the length of Jack's spine. He knew, before his first mate   
started to speak. 

  
  
**All Dialogue Drabble (Governor of the Isle)  
**

"Now now, Jack, that there's a fine little isle."

"Fine it may be, mate, but I'd much rather not take a closer look, if you don't mind."

"Oh, but I do mind. We all mind. Ye see, Jack, the crew voted for a keelhaulin', but   
I'm prepared to be generous. I'll make ye a settler, no, better, I'll make ye governor   
of that isle. Governor Jack Sparrow!"

"Not bloody likely, Barbossa. I'm still Captain of this ship. Savvy?"

"Jack—I thought ye'd realised. I'm Captain now. Am I not, Mr. Pintel?"

"Aye, Captain!"

"Captain Barbossa, at yer service, governor. Apple?"

  
  
**Freedom**

This was not freedom, though death could not touch him. Though men could not harm   
him and nature not wound. This was a prison and his body, his treacherous, traitorous   
body, made up the walls of his cell. The bars were not metal, but bone. He rattled them   
all, shinbone and breastbone and skull. They did not give way.

At first, he had thought himself free. Ten years ago, he had welcomed such power. But   
he would give anything, now, to shed it, to have back his past and the uncertainty, the   
frailty and the bright, bright intensity of life.   


**  
  
Jack Drabble (Retribution)**

  
So close, he was close enough to touch it, at last. Years of waiting that came to an   
end, on this island of death. The moment seemed to stretch out, distort beyond reason   
and hope of repair, he could not see past it. This was all that there was and the future:   
an uncharted sea. 

He cocked the pistol, he never doubted his aim would be true. He knew where the   
whelp was, and the sweet bonnie rum burning lass, but he didn't look at either one   
of them, now. 

Just you and me, mate. And he fired the shot.  


  
  
**  
**


End file.
